This short article summarizes the results of a survey about the teaching of legal ethics in U.S. law schools. In Spring 2009, under the leadership of its Chair Laurel Terry and Executive Committee Members Andy Perlman and Margaret Raymond, the AALS [Association of American Law Schools] Section on Professional Responsibility circulated a survey to learn more about how professional responsibility is taught at American law schools. A link to the online survey, which was directed to legal ethics teachers nationwide, was emailed to AALS Professional Responsibility Section members and publicized elsewhere. We received 105 responses from at least 77 different law schools over a three week period in May and June 2009.

This article summarizes the survey results on questions that included credit allocation, whether the course was taught by tenure-track or adjunct faculty, assessment methods, and topics covered. It also summarizes the results of a question that asked experience teachers what advice they would give to a new legal ethics teacher.